“I would say there’s definitely a positive trend going,” said Kurt Schwartzkopf, chief marketing officer of the Nuggets and Avalanche. “I think a lot of fans were waiting to see, and now they see a product they can get behind. I think that’s translated into ticket sales, there’s no question.”

That might have never been more obvious than in the team’s sellout of its last home game — against the lowly Detroit Pistons. It was a game that, this season, might have drawn 15,000 or 16,000, but instead became the team’s eighth sellout of the season, and first for the revamped Nuggets.

Tickets are available for tonight’s game against the Toronto Raptors, but tickets for remaining games are selling at the fastest rate of the season.

“It’s probably a bit early (to put a solid number on it), but coming down the stretch all of our weekend games are very strong, and we’re seeing our San Antonio game (on Wednesday) look real good,” Schwartzkopf said. “We’re definitely seeing the spikes. For a while, there was a little uncertainty. And now that that uncertainty is over, people are able to rally behind the new Nuggets, as everybody is calling them. If they keep playing hard, the city will rally around a great team.”

Attendance had waned this season as apathy set in surrounding the quality of play and the Carmelo Anthony drama. The Nuggets are 16th in the NBA in attendance, averaging 16,581 fans at the Pepsi Center. That figure is down 1,414 fans a game from a year ago, when the team set a franchise attendance record with 17,995 fans and 22 sellouts — the most full houses in 11 seasons.

With an average ticket price around $66, the attendance dip has cost the team an average of $93,324 per game in ticket sales, which over the first 34 home games stretches out to be $3,173,016 in lost revenue from a year ago. But selling out a game against a team such as Detroit is a very positive sign. It was a Saturday game, and despite the theory that more people come on a weekend night, the Nuggets have averaged 16,734 on Saturday games this season, fewer than 200 of the overall average.

Fans have shown up more for the matchup this season than anything else. Of the eight sellouts, two were for games against Utah, two against the Lakers, and one each against the Bulls, Heat, 76ers and Pistons.

The Nuggets have played solid basketball since the trade, going 9-4 after wrapping up a 2-2 road trip, and not only have fans noticed, they’ve started telling coach George Karl when he’s been about town.

Before the road trip, he was out for Denver’s St. Patrick’s Day parade.

“I got a lot of honked horns, got a free ride in the bicycle carriage,” Karl said. “Most of the people have a lot of energy about the new team. Most basketball guys say, ‘I really like the new face.’ I was with some football players that were really into the defensive intensity of the team.

Toronto at Denver

7 p.m. tonight, ALT, 950 AM

Spotlight on DeMar DeRozan: One of the game’s top leapers, DeRozan is good for a couple of highlights a night. And while the shooting guard is still evolving in other facets of the game, he flirts with 17 points per game and on Friday had a 30-point effort against the Wizards, making 11-of-15 field-goal attempts.

Nuggets: Denver’s four losses since trading Carmelo Anthony have been on the road and by a combined 15 points. . . . In the Dec. 10 victory at Toronto — the 1,000th win of coach George Karl’s career — Al Harrington led the Nuggets with 31 points. . . . Shooting guard Arron Afflalo (hamstring) is day to day, and point guard Raymond Felton (ankle) is likely out for tonight but could return Wednesday against the Spurs. With Felton out, Ty Lawson played 43 minutes Saturday and had just one turnover. But the team had only 14 assists (Lawson had six). “We need J.R. (Smith) and some of the other guys in the backcourt to make play-making decisions, not just scoring decisions,” Karl said.

Raptors: Even though they lost to Denver in the previous matchup this season, the Raptors scored 116 points, with four Toronto players tallying 21-plus points. . . . Heading into Sunday night’s game against the Thunder, Toronto was the sixth-worst rebounding team in the league, nabbing just 40.1 per game. . . . Former Nugget Sonny Weems is averaging close to 10 points per game off Toronto’s bench. Benjamin Hochman, The Denver Post

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Tyreek Hill didn’t know what to do when he started hearing thousands of people in Arrowhead Stadium chanting his name, even as he stood all alone on the frozen turf waiting for the punt.